Peter Nixon is managing director of Philip Morris Limited UK and Ireland. He grew up in Swiss Cottage, North London, the son of a Metropolitan police officer and a nurse. At age 13 he started his first job, working in a local supermarket, which effectively turned into him managing the shop around school and homework.

Nixon was the first person in his family to go to university, where he studied business and Japanese at Cardiff University. While some considered this an unusual choice, Nixon had developed an interest in Japan after backpacking around the country for a month as a teenager. Combining this with his business studies, he hoped he would be able to work there after he graduated.

After leaving Cardiff with a Bachelor of Science degree with honors, Nixon began working for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in 1997, which took him to Tokyo in 2001. There he joined PwC Consulting, which allowed him to use his fluent Japanese.

Nixon worked in Tokyo for another eight years, moving from his consulting position to Philip Morris Japan, where he held roles in sales, business development and corporate affairs.

In 2009, Nixon moved to Switzerland to take up the position of vice president of communication and contributions at Philip Morris International. He spent four years there before moving to Moscow to oversee the launch of Philip Morris’ revolutionary heat-not-burn device, iQOS, in Russia, where it has been a great success, with high numbers of smokers switching from combustible cigarettes to the reduced-risk product.

In December 2016, after 16 years of working overseas, Nixon returned to London to head up the U.K. and Ireland office of Philip Morris and to help to roll out the iQOS across the U.K. The national rollout of iQOS forms part of the company’s ambition to stop selling conventional, combustible cigarettes completely.